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Yiddish and German in Modern Jewish Culture(s): Ideological and Literary Perspectives

Mon, December 20, 9:00 to 10:30am, Sheraton Grand Chicago Millennium Park

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

With their linguistic affinity and long history of geographical proximity, Yiddish and German, and the interactions between them, present an intriguing and multifaceted case of inter-cultural relations. Yiddish emerged in the German-speaking territories from the encounter of Jewish immigrants with the medieval German dialects; included from its very beginning a significant Germanic component; and served for centuries as the spoken as well as a written language of Ashkenazi Jews throughout Central and Eastern Europe. From the late eighteenth century, as German Jews gradually abandoned Yiddish and acculturated to the German language and culture of their non-Jewish surroundings, the Yiddish-German divide became a marker of separation not only between Jews and non-Jews, but also inside the Jewish Ashkenazi world: between the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe (‘OSTJUDEN’) and the German-speaking Jews of the German territories (‘WESTJUDEN’).
Yet the story of the relations between Yiddish and German was never a story of separation and division only. Throughout the centuries, and especially during the late 19th and early 20th century, we find numerous instances of exchange and dialogue, rivalry and mutual influence, between the two languages and their respective cultures. This session explores the relations between Yiddish and German during the first decades of the twentieth century, while focusing on various historical, literary, cultural, and ideological dimensions of these relations. Marc Volovici’s paper discusses the attempts of eastern-European Yiddishists to detach Yiddish from its historical association with German, as part of their campaign to legitimize Yiddish as a Jewish national language. Turning the gaze to Imperial and Weimar Germany, Aya Elyada explores the Old Yiddish TSENE-RENE, or “Women’s bible,” as an object of nostalgia in modern German-Jewish culture. In the third paper, Marc Caplan examines the placement of Yiddish-speaking Jews in the urban itinerary of Alfred Döblin's BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1929), and how it resonates with a later picaresque tale of pre-Holocaust Berlin, Sh. Y. Agnon's 1951-novella AD HENA ("To This Day"). The session thus brings together cultural history and literary criticism to shed new light on Yiddish, German, and the intricate relations between them in modern Jewish culture.

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